Summer Baseball Begins
SUMMER BASEBALL BEGINS FOR MCDONALD COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL
Four games in two days for players who missed the 2020 high school baseball season and only had two practices for the upcoming summer season was one game too many.
Four games in two days for players who missed the 2020 high school baseball season and only had two practices for the upcoming summer season was one game too many.
After using seven different pitchers in winning its first three games of the 16U Carl Junction Tournament, the McDonald County pitching staff was down to position players only for the mound for its fourth game.
It took three of those position players to get McDonald County out of the top of the first inning. Colton Ruddick, Cooper Sprenkle and Lane Pratt combined to walk seven and hit two others to help stake Fort Scott to a 9-0 lead before McDonald County came to bat in the bottom half of the inning.
Fort Scott went on to claim a 14-2 win on May 31 to hand McDonald County its only loss in the tournament after three wins.
Cole Martin led the McDonald County offense with two hits while driving in both of McDonald County’s runs. Isaac Behm and Jack
Parnell had one hit each.
Carl Junction
McDonald County won its third game of the tournament with a 9-5 win over the tournament hosts in eight innings.
Cross Dowd got the win on the mound, allowing two runs on two hits while striking out three. Both runs came when the International Tiebreaker Rules (runner on second base to start the inning) were used for the seventh and eighth innings.
Tied at 3-3 going into the seventh, McDonald County took a 4-3 lead when Coty Dumond drove in Destyn Dowd, who started the inning at second base, with a ground out.
Carl Junction tied the game in the bottom half of the inning on an RBI single, but Cross Dowd got the final two outs of the inning without further damage.
In the top of the eighth, McDonald County broke loose for five runs. Cross Dowd, Behm and Jakob Gordon had RBI singles while
Pratt and Weston Gordon drove in runs with ground balls.
Cross Dowd allowed another RBI single in the bottom half of the inning, but struck out two and got a ground-out to end the game.
Behm went the first inning and a third, allowing three runs in the second inning before Dumond got the final two outs. Dumond got the win by pitching shutout ball to the sixth.
Parnell worked a scoreless sixth before Cross Dowd came in for the seventh and eighth.
Braxton Spears had a double and a single, while Martin, Cross Dowd and Behm had two singles each to lead the offense. Destyn Dowd and Jakob Gordon added one hit each.
Neosho
Cross Dowd, Weston Gordon and Spears held Neosho to three runs on six hits in McDonald County’s 5-3 win on May 30 to open the tournament.
Cross Dowd went the first three innings, allowing no runs and just one hit while striking out five. Weston Gordon worked the fourth, fifth and got one out in the sixth before Spears got the final two outs of the inning — on a line-drive double play he started.
Destyn Dowd led the offense with two hits, while Behm drove in two runs with a single in McDonald County’s four-run first inning. Cross Dowd added a triple and Spears had a single.
Southwest Tigers
McDonald County followed that win with a 5-0 win over the Southwest Tigers behind the pitching of Destyn Dowd and Spears.
Martin’s two-run single in the first keyed the McDonald county offense. Parnell, Pratt and Destyn Dowd added one hit each.
McDonald County begins play in the Joplin 8-on-8 league (pitching machine will be used) on June 2.
The McDonald County 18U team will take the field in the 8-on-8 league on June 3.